An industrial design associated with a portable electronic device (PED) may consider a variety of factors, including minimizing an overall device size, maximizing a display size, and on-demand access to input devices, among others. Resulting three dimensional solutions may include a so-called “clamshell” design. The clamshell design may utilize a hinge to enable lifting the display to expose the input devices, including perhaps a keyboard. Some embodiments of the clamshell design may utilize a dual-purpose hinge to enable lifting and rotating the display 180 degrees to support a tablet configuration.
The clamshell design may be well-suited to certain applications, including perhaps a notebook computer application and a cellular telephone application. However, the clamshell design may not provide adequate on-demand access to the input devices for a hand-held computer. Deploying the display associated with a clamshell PED may expose most or all of the input devices hidden by the display when only a few of the input devices are required for a particular task. A larger-than-necessary overall device size in the deployed configuration may result. A latency associated with opening the clamshell PED may prove bothersome, especially if the PED is used frequently.